


To Dream In Black And White

by commoncomitatus



Category: The New Legends of Monkey (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22817077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commoncomitatus/pseuds/commoncomitatus
Summary: Set during 1x07.  While Monkey and Tripitaka sleep, Gwen finds out what she can about their companions.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	To Dream In Black And White

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little snippet to show Gwen some love. Since my last attempt at writing her was part of a too-ambitious AU that will likely never see the light of day, I figured I owed her a piece that A) stuck at least vaguely close to canon, and B) actually had a shot at completion. The end result is... rather less substanceful than I'd hoped. Still, points for effort?

—

These are the heads on which the fate of the world rests:

Monkey, every bit as arrogant and prideful as he was five centuries ago. He is no softer for his years of imprisonment, no more willing to heed others’ voices, no more patient or tolerant, no more like the Master they both lost. Monkey, whose only tether to the world he must save is the crown on his head, gilded and gleaming, even here where there is no light. The crown, as beautiful and deadly as she remembers it, as powerful and dangerous as Monkey in its own way. The crown and the god, the only revenants of a world so few remember, their vast and terrible power controlled only by—

The monk.

No.

The _girl_ , who is most certainly not a monk.

The girl, who holds the crown sutra on her tongue and the gods’ language in her mind, who holds Monkey by his head and has no idea what that means.

She will learn.

She’d better learn. Gwen is not in the habit of fruitless martyrdom.

That she won’t be around to see it...

Well, that is of no concern now. The world will be saved or it won’t. Monkey will become the god he needs to be or he won’t. The girl will grow into her name — _Tripitaka_ , the holiest and most precious of human names — or she won’t. All of this is out of Gwen’s hands now. She is both saddened and relieved that she won’t survive long enough to know for sure.

The two of them, then: Monkey and monk.

And the other two.

Gwen knows very little of the other two. She knows — if only because they have survived an entire day in this place — that they can fight, and she knows from watching the four of them together that the girl who is not Tripitaka trusts them deeply.

If she is to leave this world in peace, she must know more than that.

*

It is too late to still be called night, the darkness growing gloomy with the threat of dawn.

Gwen has lived here long enough that it no longer bothers her; she could make her way through this place with her eyes and hands bound, should she ever need to. Dark or light, or the hazy halfway point that will reach them soon, it’s all much the same to her. Even change seems unchanging after so many years in the same place, the same pattern of light-then-dark, the same game of hunter-and-prey.

They’re both awake, even this late. Gwen holds for a moment, half-hidden in the brush. Watching them, gauging them, studying them. Trying to see some small glimmer in the dark of who they are in the light.

Pigsy: exhausted, but too anxious to let himself sleep too much or too well. He nods off every couple of seconds, then jerks himself awake with a snort and a yelp, looking around as though anticipating danger or bad news. Uncertain of himself, his eyesight poor in the murk, he seems barely half-aware of his surroundings, and even that is a flattery. If trouble did come calling — as, indeed, it may yet still — Gwen doubts he’d be up to the task of facing it.

Sandy: dull-eyed and reclusive, staring at nothing. Easy to assume she’s lost in thought or tired like her friend, but her body, drawn tighter than a bowstring, gives her away. Unlike him, she is alert, and though her eyes are unfocused they are not without sight; ready for anything, shadows pulled around her like a cloak, she is at home in the dark. Gwen sees a little of herself in her tense, locked muscles; was she the hunter, she wonders, or the prey?

A strange, mismatched pair, and one ill-suited to such an important quest. What was the Scholar thinking, to choose them?

Only one way to find out, she supposes, and steps into the clearing.

Sandy lifts her head. There is no more clarity in her eyes now than there was when they were fixed on the void. She seems to be looking through Gwen, rather than at her, like she’s unaccustomed to making eye-contact; it’s a little unsettling, even to one used to having only herself and the murderous, monstrous Forest Kin as company.

“Tripitaka?” Her voice hitches, but only a little. Even in plain sight, she hides herself well. “Is he still with us?”

Gwen hesitates, catching her breath. Her silence hangs heavy on the air; both of the girl’s companions grow very, very still. The tension here is telling: Pigsy, more alert than he has been in hours, watches her without blinking, without moving, almost without breathing; Sandy is twitching, trembling, as though the monk’s — the _girl’s_ — life were somehow inextricably bound to her own. It bodes well that they care so much, that he would shake off his own discomfort, that she would let hers show.

Finally, holding on to a bit of that tension, letting it bolster her faltering strength, Gwen grants them a fraction of a nod.

“He’s strong,” she says, giving away only as much as they need to know. “And brave, and stubborn. Come morning, he’ll be as good as new.”

Pigsy slumps with relief. Visible, audible, tangible; he broadcasts his feelings with every inch of his broad body, like there is no greater threat out here than the leaves trembling on half-dead trees, the moon fading above, the shadows just starting to part. A dangerous thing to be in a place like this, so open with his heart.

Sandy doesn’t move. Her throat convulses once, her body grows still once more, and all she says is, “Good.”

It is, Gwen suspects, an understatement of the most epic proportions.

She wonders — fleetingly, selfishly, perhaps a little coldly — if their relief would be so profound if they knew the cost of their beloved monk’s survival.

Would they still celebrate if she told them? If she bared her chest, her arms, her everything, if she let them see the poison coursing through her veins, its fire igniting her skin, if let them see and hear and know what it means? If she told them, clear-voiced and clear-headed, that the monk’s life — the _girl’s_ life — was spared at the price of her own, would they spare even a thought for the sacrifice?

Would she want them to? Would that make it easier, somehow? If they valued her life — a stranger’s life, a no-one’s life — over their precious ‘Tripitaka’, would it bring her any peace? Would it help to know that she would be mourned, or would the sweetness turn bitter to discover that her life — a stranger, a no-one — carries as much weight to them as ‘his’?

Either way, comfort or not, it would change nothing. Tripitaka’s life has just begun; Gwen’s has been forfeit for five hundred years. To tell these two the truth would only confuse things, make them more complicated than they have any need to be. It will serve no-one to stroke her own ego now, and it certainly won’t make the transition any less painful.

“You should rest,” she tells them instead, chasing off the unwelcome wondering, the looming dawn and the poison seething ravenously in her blood. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us and we need you both awake and alert.”

Pigsy grunts. The relief has left deep lines on his face, made the exhaustion even more obvious than it was before. Gwen amends her first impression of him: here is a god unaccustomed to hard living, to work or struggles of any kind. He is strong of body, to be sure, but his heart is soft and his mind is weak. What kind of luck must he have found, she wonders, to have escaped the persecution that came for all gods after the demons rose to power?

“Good idea,” he says, shuffling down until he’s horizontal. Eager for sleep, now that he knows the human is out of danger; selfish or not, she can’t fault his priorities. “Gonna need a clear head to fight those... uh, _things_... eh?”

 _Things_. A fitting name for the Forest Kin, though Gwen doubts they’d appreciate it. She keeps the thought to herself, and tucks her smile away.

“They won’t make it easy,” she affirms. “They’re honour-bound to take us. They’ll do whatever it takes to see the task complete.”

She looks to Sandy, anticipating much the same response: relief turning to exhaustion, the need for sleep rising again to the surface, secure in the knowledge that her precious ‘Tripitaka’ will survive the night as surely as she herself will.

Instead, she finds her standing, scythe in hand and a stubborn set to her jaw. “You rest,” she says to Gwen. “You look exhausted. I’ll keep watch.”

Gwen snorts. “I know this forest better than you,” she points out, not as kindly as she perhaps should. “Do you think I would’ve picked a spot the Kin could so easily find us?”

Sandy’s eyes gleam, the first sign of life Gwen’s seen in them; it is no less unsettling than the dullness. “Yes.”

That said, she spins on her heels and stalks off into the brush.

Fumbling clumsily for a blanket, Pigsy says, “Don’t mind her.”

Easier said than done. Do none of these people understand what is at stake? Do none of them care for anything beyond their own pride? Do none of them realise what must be done, what sacrifices must still be made?

“She’d better not slow us down in the morning,” Gwen sighs, clenching her teeth.

Pigsy laughs. “Trust me, ‘slow’ is not a problem you’re ever going to have with that one.”

“Good. ” Hard now, lacking in sentiment; apparently they won’t respond to anything less. “Our strength is already diminished. The Kin know this, and they will use it to their advantage. We can’t afford...”

She stops, unnerved by the way his eyes narrow, a curious glint igniting behind them. He doesn’t seem the type to read between the lines — or to read much of anything at all, given the choice — but maybe he’s a little sharper than Gwen gives him credit for. If he picks up on her discomfort, he’s polite enough not to mention it, but the shift in his expression is jarring all the same.

“Can’t say Tripitaka’s ever had much strength to speak of,” he remarks, rather too coolly. “Him being out of commission? Don’t see that it makes that much of a difference, you know?”

It’s not unkind, merely practical, the difference between a trio of gods and the small, fragile-bodied human they’re sworn to protect. And if it were only Tripitaka’s weakness Gwen was thinking of, the point might be a valid one.

Unfortunately...

She shakes her head, angered by the wave of dizziness it brings. _Not yet. Too early, there is still so much to do, still so much I need to learn, to know._

“Don’t underestimate the Forest Kin,” she says, driving down the vertigo, the frustration, all of it. “They’re ruthless and cunning, and they’ll stop at nothing to get what they want. If they scent weakness on any one of us—” _Any one of us, you idiot!_ “—you can be sure that they’ll find a way to capitalise.”

That works. The calculating look falls off his face, replaced by terror.

“Lovely.” The word is little more than a whimper. “Anything else we need to know?”

Plenty, to be frank. But time is of the essence, and there are far more important things to do. Gwen is not here to make small-talk, to indulge the paranoia and panic of an ill-prepared god. She is here to comfort herself, to be certain as she draws her last breath that Tripitaka — whoever she is now, whatever she will become — is in safe hands.

She looks Pigsy in the eye, as best she can in the dark, and says, “I was just about to ask you the same question.”

It’s not her most subtle work, admittedly. But then, it’s been at least three centuries since she last had a chance to polish her social skills. And that was without the poison in her veins, the pain muddling her thoughts, the echo of her heartbeat making it hard to keep them straight. It is much too early to feel as worn down as she does, not when she knows how much worse it’s going to get.

She wishes she had more time to hone her talents. She wishes she had more time to indulge this idiot in his stupidity. She wishes she had more time to—

She wishes she had more _time_.

But she doesn’t. She only has this, one night to be sure that the fate of world is safe, that his broad back is strong enough to carry it, and so she’ll make do with what she has.

“I want to know about you,” she goes on, as blunt and straightforward as she can manage. “And your friend.”

The word ‘friend’ makes him laugh. “Nothing much to say,” he says, chatty but not especially helpful. “She’s a bit gone in the head but hell in a fight. I’m not much in a scuffle but at least my brains are in one piece. Put us together and you’ve got about half a decent god.”

That is as far from reassuring as a statement can get, but Gwen doesn’t want him to see that.

“And the quest?” she presses, with urgency. “Why did the Scholar deem you worthy of it?”

He laughs louder at that. “Do I look worthy to you?” It takes him a moment to regain his sobriety, but when he does it happens fast; like a switch thrown, he grows almost melancholy. “I never knew the guy. Tripitaka knew him. Possibly Sandy did too? I don’t know. But I never met him in my life. So if you think I’m part of some big master-plan or prophecy or whatever, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to disappoint you.”

 _Disappoint_. He really has no idea.

A part of her is tempted to throw up her hands and give up now. Turn away from him, not even bother with his cuckoo-headed little friend, just leave the four of them to their inevitable folly. She’s given her life for this useless band of misfits; what more can they reasonably ask of her?

But of course, she knows the answer. Not just the Scholar: the whole of the resistance is dependent on these four imbeciles, on Monkey and his monk, and the other two who walk with them. Whether or not the journey began as the prophecies or the Scholar foretold, it did begin.

That has to be worth something.

More, at least, than the dying breath of an old, tired god.

It has to be.

“So why _are_ you here?” she asks, not caring for once that she sounds exactly as desperate as she feels.

Pigsy considers the question for a moment, then sighs and says, “Tripitaka.”

Gwen glances automatically over her shoulder. Her mind flares with memory, with pain: the moment of choice, the echo of Monkey’s words in her head, his quiet awe subduing his pride and arrogance, softening him for the first time in all the years they knew each other. A great feat for a human he’s only just met, but is that enough to make her into what she must become? Is it enough to make a deceiver, a liar, a girl in monk’s clothes, into _Tripitaka_?

Gwen wets her lips, gestures over her shoulder to the private little clearing where the two of them rest. “That Tripitaka?”

Pigsy shoots her an odd look. “You know of any other?”

Oblivious, then, as much as Monkey. Gwen doesn’t know if that is good or bad, but it settles in the pit of her stomach like something warm. Comfort, perhaps, though she has no idea whether or not she has the right to feel it.

“He chose you? Asked you to join the quest?”

Pigsy shrugs, and the lines on his face grow deeper; suddenly, he looks almost as old as she feels.

“Kid took a chance on a washed-up old has-been,” he says, very quietly. “Still don’t know why.”

Hm.

“Maybe he saw something of merit in you,” Gwen guesses. “Something good, or else something kind.”

Looking at him, she can scarcely fathom such a thing, but humans are so much more idealistic than gods.

Pigsy’s laughter is ragged with self-loathing. “Doubt it. Reckon he just figured I was the only way out of a tight spot. Never mind that I was the one who got him into it in the the first place, never mind that he should have let me rot with...” He trails off, as though catching himself on the brink of revealing a terrible secret. “But that’s him all over, isn’t it? Tripitaka. Doesn’t care what you were or what you did. Only what you could be: _better_.”

The pensiveness — no, regret — is unexpected, and it tempers the disappointment more than she expects. 

Whatever he may see in himself, the girl clearly saw something deeper. Perhaps not merit, perhaps not even goodness or kindness, but something. A shred of decency, perhaps, a glimmer of the god still burning beneath whatever sordid life he was living. And Pigsy, for all of his blind-sightedness in other areas, seems to grasp the significance of that. The quiet grief in his eyes, reverence and sorrow, speaks far more than his words.

“What were you doing before?” Gwen asks, with some idea now of the answer. “You don’t look like someone who’s spent the last five centuries skulking around in a demon-infested forest, or struggling to survive like the rest of our kind.” She tries not to think too much about that, the whispers she heard about other gods stupid enough to be discovered. “So what in the world have you been doing?”

His expression twists; the regret sharpens. “Nothing you’d want to hear about.”

It’s no answer, and Gwen lets her eyes harden to steel. “If I didn’t want to hear it, I wouldn’t have asked.”

“Fine.” He doesn’t soften at all. “Nothing I’d care to _talk_ about. That better?”

“No.” He’s being frank enough with her; it’s only fair she offer a little of the same in return. “Maybe you don’t realise this, or maybe you just don’t care, but the quest you’re on? It _matters_. Do you understand me? The fate of the world, the future of humans and gods alike, rests on that g— on that young man’s shoulders, and the shoulders of those chosen to accompany him.” She locks eyes with him, lets him see how important this is. _“Your_ shoulders, you oversized, lazy coward.”

If he is offended by the insult, he doesn’t let it show. Perhaps he’s been called worse; Gwen doubts it would be underserved.

“I think the whole ‘chosen’ thing is a bit of a stretch,” he says after a long moment, then shrugs those oversized, lazy shoulders as if to cement the point. “Just sort of fell into it, really. Literally, that is. From the top of a—”

“Do you take anything seriously?” Gwen demands, interrupting with her mouth before she can do so with her fists or her weapon. “Anything at all?”

“Not if I can help it.” Strange, how he actually seems serious about that part. “You’ve seen what he’s like. The little monk, I mean. Tripitaka. Kid’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders, like you said, and he knows it. Better than I do, probably even better than you do. Someone’s gotta keep things light, don’t you think?”

Perhaps so, at that. The girl has a thousand burdens pressing in on her from all sides; maybe there is something to be said for a companion who can offer some levity, some reprieve from all that weight.

Ah, but what good is levity against the fate of the world? Tripitaka surely knows it, and so does Gwen.

“I need to know that it’s in safe hands,” she tells him flatly. “Tripitaka, the quest. All of it. When we part ways tomorrow, I need to know that you and your friends are willing and able to do what must be done. No matter the situation, no matter the trials or tribulations or challenges, I need to know that you’ll be able to face them. I need to know you’re capable. Do you understand?”

“Right.” The levity falls off him then, vanished like it was never there at all. “Well, in that case...”

And there it is: a sigh, a shake of the head, and silence. Gwen’s ‘disappointment’ — such an understatement, such a shallow word for something so powerful and all-devouring — resurfaces, more potent than before. She only wishes she were surprised.

“You’re not up to the task,” she sighs, feeling a thousand years of weariness pulling at her poisoned veins. “Is that what you’re saying?”

He sits up a little. Only a little, but apparently he’s decided the conversation is worth more attention than he’s been giving it thus far. He’s all seriousness now, face lined ever more deeply, and there’s no trace anywhere of his former carelessness. A start, at least, if only a very small one: he knows when something really matters.

“I don’t know what you’ve heard,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “But I’d wager you’re smart enough to take a gander and put the pieces together. You don’t need me to tell you that I’m no hero. No bloody warrior, no beacon of hope or whatever else you’re looking for. Whatever this quest means to you, or meant to your precious Scholar, or Tripitaka, or whoever else. Do you really need me to tell you that I’m not it?”

Gwen doesn’t give him even a cursory up-and-down. “No.”

“Right.” And yet, though he surely wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t know the answer, he sounds a little hurt to hear it said. “I’m here because I burned all my bridges and had nowhere else to go. That’s it: the big bad truth you want to hear so badly. I’m a mistake. Got myself a good life, then burned it all to the ground, and this mess is all that’s left.” He waves a hand, then looks Gwen straight in the eye. “So, there. I’m not ‘chosen’, I’m not part of some prophecy or resistance or whatever else you people are up to. I’m just an idiot who didn’t know when to keep his head down. Should’ve stayed out of it, but here I am. If that’s not good enough, too bloody bad.”

Gwen takes a moment to absorb that. Unsurprisingly vague, but unexpectedly telling; from her experience, there’s only one kind of person capable of providing a ‘good life’ in this brave new world.

Still, she doesn’t call him on it. She lets it sit, all those words, all that self-loathing and self-deprecation, the heavy heart of someone who knows — and doesn’t need her to tell him — that he doesn’t have what it takes to be what they both know he needs to.

It _is_ disappointing. But less so, knowing that he feels the same way she does. It means he understands, at least, how much his uselessness weighs, how damned important it is that he learn to be better.

“I see,” she says at last, and for once she doesn’t bother to hide her weaknesses. She lets it all show, the pain in her blood, the exhaustion that’s been hanging over her for five centuries. “And you feel no obligation at all to this quest you’ve suddenly found yourself a part of?”

He grunts, making a show of indifference, then locks eyes with her again and sighs.

“Wouldn’t say that, exactly.” The confession comes hard, she can tell. It should; change always does. “He’s a good lad, Tripitaka. Gave me a second change when he could’ve just as easily locked me up with...” He coughs. “I owe him a favour. Or ten.”

Gwen is unimpressed. “And when your debts are paid?”

He bursts out laughing. Riotously, loud enough to disturb the brush and any Kin who might be lurking. The sound grates along Gwen’s nerves, setting fire to the poison, making her head throb; the pain grows worse, thickening the fog in her mind until it takes almost more strength than she has to stay focused, to keep her attention on what he says next.

“Lady,” he jibes, mouth quirking as the levity returns, “the end of the world will have come and gone another dozen times by the time my debts are paid.”

Gwen doesn’t know what to say to that. Somewhere deep down inside, he knows what he’s saying — what he’s actually saying, not dancing around or pretending not to say, not avoiding in that arrogant overgrown-child sort of way he thrives on — and she’s not sure whether it would do any good for either of them if she brings it to light. 

“And you’re sincere?” she asks instead, pressing but not pushing. “About paying them, that is?”

His shrug is not nearly as casual as he probably intends. “Not been sincere about much in my life. Suppose a fella’s gotta start somewhere. What better place to start than saving the world?”

No doubt he thinks that’s hyperbole. Gwen, knowing it’s not, doesn’t answer.

She wishes she’d been more present during yesterday’s tussle with the Kin. She would have liked to be a part of it, to be active and engaged with the rest of them instead of holding herself back and protecting the girl who would be Tripitaka. A wasted effort, as it turned out, and not just because the girl wasn’t who she claimed; the poison speaks for itself, and if Gwen had known then what she knows now — that it would be her last opportunity to see the three idiot-gods in action — perhaps she would have simply tossed the human to the ground and prayed for the best.

She wishes she could have seen more. Pigsy and Sandy, certainly, but more from Monkey as well. After five hundred years of imprisonment — at her hands, no less — it doesn’t take a genius to recognise that he’s barely half the powerhouse he once was, if even that much. She wishes she could know for sure that he and his new friends are capable of protecting their human charge, capable of bleeding for her if necessary and capable enough to ensure that it’s not. She wishes she could know for certain that her death will be worth more than the half-life she’s been living. If she could just have seen them fighting properly, really, truly... if she could just be _sure_...

Little good in wishing now, though. It’s done, it’s over — or it will be, very soon — and there is still so much to do.

“Rest now,” she says to Pigsy, hating her voice for its hoarseness, the way she can feel the poison dripping off her tongue.

“Thought that’s what I was doing,” he grunts, lying back down. “You know, before you started interrogating me.”

Gwen snorts, amused and only a little annoyed. “If you think this is an interrogation,” she tells him steadily, “you’d better pray the Kin don’t get their hands on you.”

It is laughable, the way he blanches at that, fearful and horrified. And yet, at the same time, it is not very funny at all.

These are the heads on which the fate of the world rests: Monkey, monk, and a mook who turns pale at the mere thought of having to fight. How can she leave it now, she wonders wretchedly, in hands such as his?

“Righto,” he’s saying, weakly now. “I’ll be sure to, uh, do that. Yeah.”

He yanks the blanket up over his head, then, and hunkers down beneath, as though he can hide from the world and all its dangers simply by closing his eyes and pretending not to see. No doubt he actually believes such childish nonsense, imagining himself safe from her at least, hidden from her prying eyes and questions. As if she hasn’t spent the last five hundred years honing all her senses, learning to detect even the faintest flicker of motion even from under covers and canopies, scenting and sensing, seeking the shadows within the shadows.

He has no idea, how much of himself he gives away, even when he’s cowering. Does he really think she can’t see the blanket quaking? Does he sincerely believe he’s hiding the laboured rasp of his breath, the rancid reek of his fear?

Disgusted, she turns away. “You shouldn’t be here,” she sighs.

The blanket twitches its agreement. “No argument here. But since I am, might as well try and make the best of it.”

Spoken like a true optimist.

No.

Spoken like a spoiled imbecile, with no awareness of the world around him, no idea what horrors it still holds for soft-hearted, weak-minded fools like him. A world left in his hands is no better than one left to the demons.

Gwen shakes her head, glad that he won’t see it, that his senses are nothing beside her own.

“Go to sleep,” she says, feeling utterly drained. “I’m going to see if your friend needs help.”

Pigsy grunts again. A little amused, perhaps, but she gets the impression he’s just trying to fill the silence. No doubt he’s afraid of that as well. Silence, like it’s not the only friend to depend upon in a place as dark as this.

“Don’t sneak up on her, yeah?” he warns. “Else you’ll be the one needing help.”

An earnest warning, Gwen is sure. But she has seen more centuries than that scrawny, dull-eyed little god has seen meals, and the idea that she might think herself a _threat_ is enough to make her laugh and laugh.

For a moment, at least.

But then she moves to leave, and the poison burns again, dizziness crashing over her like a tide, a flood, a surge, pulling her down and making her sluggish, making her weak, making her—

The laughter stops, strangled in her throat.

She spins on her heels, wordless and weakened, and storms off into the brush.

*

She doesn’t need to announce herself: by the time she’s within earshot, Sandy already knows she’s there.

She’s reclining against a tree at the edge of the clearing, gazing out into the shadows. She looks much the same as she did before, vacant and only half-there, and she doesn’t turn around as Gwen approaches; only the clenching of her fingers gives her away, her grip tightening on her weapon, her jaw blanching even whiter than it already is, like bones bleached under a desert sun.

“You tread lightly.” No compliment intended; it’s an observation, nothing more, candid and toneless. Is she capable of anything else, Gwen wonders. “Necessary, I suppose, in a place like this.”

“Something like that.” Reading Sandy’s body language, she doesn’t bother with small-talk. It clearly would not be well-received. “Any trouble?”

Sandy steps away from the tree, as graceful as a dancer. The sweep of her cloak reveals a great deal: a pair of the Kin’s shuriken buried deep in the bark, and not so much as a scratch on her skin or a tear in her clothing. 

“Nothing of note.” Much like everything else she says, the words are void of life and warmth. She gestures at the little weapons, as if Gwen hadn’t seen them already, and elucidates: “Not a challenge. Too slow, too easily avoided. A warning, or perhaps a threat. They want us to know that they know where we are, and that they’re watching.”

A shrewd observation, especially from one with no prior contact with the Kin. Gwen is impressed, despite herself.

“It’s how they hunt,” she explains, not letting it show. “They depend on keeping their prey weak, vulnerable. It’s why they tried to keep you divided when they attacked earlier. They thrive on insecurity and nervousness, and on fear most of all.”

Sandy’s mouth twitches. Gwen gets the distinct impression it’s not meant as a smile.

“Of course they do.” There is an edge to her voice, sharp and cold. “They’re demons.”

It’s not venom, Gwen realises, but something deeper, something almost feral. She can’t quite make out the nuance, but it’s the first shift Sandy has let into her voice since they met. Even her relief did not cut as keenly as this. It carries weight, whatever its source, and Gwen makes a private note of it.

“Tell me about yourself,” she says, not at all conversationally.

Sandy turns, studies her with bemusement. “I don’t think so.”

“You misunderstand me.” Gwen shows her teeth, lets them catch the moonlight. Just a bit, just a flash, just enough. “It wasn’t a suggestion.”

“I don’t care what it was.” More backbone than her friend, at least; if only there was more time to indulge it. “Why do you want to know?”

Gwen doesn’t immediately answer. Instead, only pretending to change the subject, she remarks, “I’ve lived in this forest for five hundred years.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Sandy quips, without an iota of sincerity.

The sarcasm is not appreciated, but it’s comforting to know that she’s capable of it. Until now, she’s had little to offer but detached observations and questions about Tripitaka; that she is capable of changing her tone at all strikes Gwen as an unexpected relief. She accepts the remark, then, by rolling her eyes — sarcasm in return for sarcasm — then makes her point:

“Five hundred years in this forest. Five _centuries_. From the look of you, I’d wager you haven’t even been alive for half that time.”

Sandy scowls, the petulance rather affirming Gwen’s point. “So?”

“So,” Gwen presses, with a somewhat condescending smile, “perhaps you’d do well to respect your elders and betters.”

She doesn’t really expect that to work, shameless as it is, and yet it does. Perhaps there is something to be said for the youth of this brave new world, after all. Sandy’s scowl vanishes in an instant, the pale skin darkening almost imperceptibly in a flush, and she tilts her chin up to look Gwen in the eye, face-to-face for the first time since they met.

“I don’t know about ‘betters’,” she says, only a little sourly, “but I’ll concede you know more of this particular situation than I do.”

“Close enough.” Gwen pinches the bridge of her nose, a headache flaring behind her eyes that has nothing to do with her abrasive companion. Her lungs burn, blood boiling, and she hopes against hope that she can keep the discomfort hidden until this conversation is over. “So, then: tell me about yourself. Why did the Scholar deem you worthy of accompanying Tripitaka?”

That gets a reaction. A real one, not the discordant half-blinks and confused frowns she’s seen thus far, or the sullen petulance of youth. Sandy flinches hard, then turns away like the word ‘worthy’ hold some terrible power over her, like the sutra tightening Monkey’s crown until he cries out.

“I don’t know that he did.” Her voice is hushed, cracked; it doesn’t shake, but Gwen can feel the heaviness just as well. “He told me to wait for Tripitaka, and so I did. If that makes me worthy, it’s more than he ever told me.”

Gwen frowns. There’s a lot to digest there, probably more than Sandy realises.

“That’s all?” she presses after a moment.

“Yes. I don’t...” She swallows, defiant and suddenly vulnerable. “What else do you want from me? I barely even know what the word means. The only names anyone ever gave me are ‘demon’ and ‘monster’. You want me to call myself ‘worthy’? Of the quest? Of _Tripitaka_? I can’t do that.”

Despite herself, Gwen softens. She can’t afford to back down completely, not until she knows for certain that Tripitaka is in good hands, but she recognises enough of the world’s pain in this dull-eyed young god, quiet little echoes of the world she’s been fighting for, to allow her some breathing room.

“You’re very young,” she repeats, gentler now. “Do you know—”

“I know enough,” Sandy rasps, anger rising now to clash with the vulnerability. “I know the world. I’ve lived in it. Not here, not like you, nothing to worry about but a few sneaky demons hiding in trees. Out there in the real world, cold and cruel and violent, the world that _you_ let happen.” She’s breathing raggedly, chest heaving, but her voice is as hollow as ever. It makes Gwen think of a still lake disturbed by ripples. “I am young, yes. But I _know_. I know the world, I know Tripitaka, and I know how to help him. How to protect him. How to keep him safe from all the dreadful things that you left behind. All the monsters and the people and—”

“You mean demons.”

“I mean _people_.”

And that...

It says a lot. Too much, perhaps.

Gwen allows herself a moment — only a moment, she can’t afford anything more — to feel pity for this scrawny young thing, dull-eyed and jaded and full of the world’s darkness. Young indeed, to be born to this, knowing nothing but the horrors of the demons’ reign. Alone, probably, at least until the Scholar. Gwen’s own life, her self-ordained exile to this forest, has taught her how painful such solitude can be. She knows—

Yes. She knows, too, rather more than she would have wanted.

“I’m sorry,” she says. It’s all the breath she can afford to waste.

Sandy blinks. Even that, it seems, was more than she expected.

“Yes.” She swallows again, a sharp little spasm that sounds louder than it should. Gwen is starting to recognise it as a sign of nervousness and discomfort. “I... yes.”

Gwen turns away, under the guise of listening out for the Kin. Sandy is much sharper than Pigsy — all the more proof, if she needed it, that their lives took very different turns — and she doesn’t expect for a moment that she’ll be fooled by the pretence. Still, perhaps she’ll find a respite in no longer being scrutinised. She doesn’t seem to take kindly to being watched or spoken to, to being the centre of attention in any manner. Another thing they have in common, Gwen supposes. Once, she might have felt differently, but now...

“You knew him, then?” she asks, shaking off the thought. “The Scholar? If your friend is to be believed, you’re the only one.”

Sandy makes a small, sad noise. “I don’t speak for the others,” she says, a little huffily. “But yes, I knew him a little. He was a good human. A prophet, a poet, he was kind, he was good, he...”

It is grief this time, not anger, that cuts off the flood of words. She chokes, ducking her head until her face is hidden, framed by her hair. Gwen knows that feeling herself, all too well; like the Master before him, it struck her harder than she’d care to admit when news of the Scholar’s passing reached her. It is almost more than she can do, here and now, to keep from grieving all over again.

“He was one of the greatest humans I’ve ever met,” she agrees quietly. “Kind, as you said. And for the resistance, irreplaceable.”

Sandy nods, whimpers, keeps her face hidden. “He gave me more than I can ever return.”

Another debt, then. Different, but...

“You’re loyal, then?” Blunt, to be sure, but Sandy seems to respond best to bluntness and honesty. Not like her friend at all. “To the Scholar?”

“I’m loyal to _Tripitaka_.” Said without hesitation, with only the faintest tremor in her voice to give away how deep that emotion goes. “Not that it’s any particular business of yours.”

Perhaps not. But the words still lift some of the weight off Gwen’s shoulders.

“Good,” she says, and recalls the emptiness in Sandy’s voice when she said the word earlier, pushed out through a convulsive throat, all her emotions tucked away and smothered, like a source of terrible shame.

Silence, then, from both of them.

Sandy is staring into the distance again, piercing the shadows like she’s more accustomed to night than day; Gwen follows her gaze, finds the air quiet and threatless. Neither one of them are naive enough to believe the peace will last, but it is welcome just the same, while it does. For Gwen herself, rather more than Sandy; it’s been a long day, a longer night, and she would be weary enough even without the poison sapping her strength and her willpower. There is little she wouldn’t give to simply lay down for a moment, a minute, an hour, to close her eyes, and simply—

No. _No_. There’s too much still to do. No peace for her, not yet.

Still gazing dull-eyed into the nothing, Sandy murmurs, “Why?”

Gwen does not ask her to clarify. It would only insult them both, and waste yet more time they do not have.

“You knew the Scholar,” she says simply. “You know why.”

“He only told me to wait for Tripitaka. To help him.” For the first time, Sandy sounds tired too. “Nothing more. I swear it.”

Interesting.

From Gwen’s experience, the Scholar was never shy with his information; if he trusted someone enough to know something, he trusted them enough to know everything. To withhold information, and from a god? It makes her wonder about a lot of things, none of them particularly pleasant. Perhaps if they had more time, she might indulge herself to press the matter further, maybe even to learn something new about him, this greatest of all humans, through the eyes of another who knew him, even just briefly. If they had more time, perhaps...

But they do not. They have hours, probably less, and there are more important things Gwen would yet know.

“How old were you?” she asks, as delicately as she can. “When he told you?”

Sandy doesn’t answer that. As flighty as she seems to be about that particular subject, Gwen didn’t really expect her to.

“How old were _you_ ,” she demands instead, growing heated again, “when the world fell apart and left you to this place?”

Amused, Gwen allows herself a chuckle. “Older than you are now, little one.”

It’s like kicking a hornet’s nest. Sandy refrains, just about, from actually attacking her, but she looks like she desperately wants to. Her weapon, crude and massive, shakes in her hands, its blade catching the moonlight. Another threat, no less deadly than the ones Gwen is used to getting from the Kin, albeit from a more amusing source.

“Call me that again,” Sandy says through gritted teeth, “and Tripitaka’s life won’t be the only one in danger.”

For a moment — only a moment, no more — Gwen wishes she could take her up on that. If only she were allowed to leave the world so painlessly.

“Her— _his_ life isn’t in danger.” It comes out stuttering, awkward. Gwen hopes Sandy assumes it’s because she’s intimidated; it is safer than the alternative, the truth. “I made sure of that. You can drop the bravado.”

“Ah.” Surprisingly, she does yield, life sparking briefly behind her eyes, as though the monk’s name is enough to temper her, a sutra rather more gentle than the one used on Monkey. “Yes. You did say, um...”

“I did.” Gwen allows herself to look exactly as sick as she is. “I did more than _say_.”

If Sandy grasps the depth of that, she does not let it show. It is enough that she takes the more general meaning: _I saved him_.

“Yes.” She swallows again: more discomfort, more nervousness. The childish indignation has entirely vanished now, leaving behind something softer, almost sweet. “For that, I... _we_ owe you much. I’m sorry, I didn’t...”

“Don’t apologise.” The interruption is sharper than she intends, and it startles them both. “You clearly care a great deal about h— about _him_. That’s more reassuring than you can know.”

Sandy ducks her head. Embarrassed? No: ashamed.

“Not to him,” she mumbles, and flushes as deep as her pale skin allows.

Gwen doesn’t smile at that, but it’s sorely tempting. How typical, she thinks, of a stubborn young human, not to see the blessings she has in front of her. Pigsy, with his perceived debts, will stick around long enough to see them paid and his own karma restored, but devotion like Sandy’s is a rare gift indeed. The girl would be wise to appreciate it, but of course she will do no such thing. In this, it seems, their ‘Tripitaka’ is not so dissimilar to Monkey: he never appreciated his blessings, either, not until the moment they were taken away.

The thought makes her ache a little. How wrong they were — how wrong _she_ was — to judge him so harshly for something that meant so little.

Ingratitude isn’t a crime. It wasn’t a crime for Monkey, all those centuries ago, and it’s not a crime for Tripitaka now either. The world may have changed immeasurably, but that has not.

“Tripitaka is still young,” Gwen says to Sandy. “And I’m sure this little adventure has taught him a thing or two about valuing those who would stand by him, those who would sacrifice—”

She stops, not wanting to finish, not wanting to give power to what she’s already done: _those who would sacrifice their lives for him_.

Or, indeed, for _her_. The girl hiding behind stolen robes, the name hidden behind the name. The truth that will change everything, or nothing at all.

It’s a no-brainer, looking at the shy adoration on Sandy’s face, to assume that the young god would do such a thing without thought: lay down her life for the name or the monk, the boy or the girl or whatever other form she took, for any version of him or her. But of course it’s not Sandy that Gwen is thinking about right now: it is herself, and the heat in her blood, the blurring of her vision, the pain and the poison and the final purpose, the last moments of a life lived too long.

To say the words out loud would surely cut too close to the harsh, cold, brutal reality, too close to giving away her truth to this god she barely knows. Sandy is more perceptive than Pigsy by far; the wrong glance at the wrong moment, and Gwen knows that she will see the poison in her and realise the sacrifice she speaks of is not hypothetical. She cannot risk that; none of them can know until it’s too late to try anything stupid.

Blessedly, Sandy is too caught up in her own thoughts to recognise Gwen’s pause for the confession it almost was. She is quiet now, features soft and sort of sad, and when she speaks again it is with a reverence Gwen hasn’t heard since before the Jade Mountain fell.

“I would, you know.” She’s staring at the ground, eyes no longer dull; they gleam with life, and with tears. “I don’t know if that makes me worthy, to you or to the Scholar, or to Tripitaka. But whatever it took, whatever was needed. For him, without hesitation.”

Gwen allows herself a moment to think on that, a moment, brief and private, to consider the what-if, the maybe-not, the future that could never have been. Sandy has a great deal of passion, it seems, but for all her insistences to the contrary she is young and wild and lacks so much of the life Gwen has taken for granted. Would it be a greater benefit, she wonders, if their positions were reversed? If Sandy were fated to take the Kin’s poison in her stead, if Gwen were destined to take her place at Tripitaka’s side, armed with the knowledge of who ‘he’ really is? Would she do a better job of seeing the quest complete? Would her devotion to the cause count for more than Sandy’s devotion to the name?

All questions without answers, of course, and it is foolish to dwell on them now. She’s had five hundred years to fill herself with questions such as these, with worries and doubts and fears. Now that her long life is almost over, she finds that she’s tired of them.

“I don’t know if it makes you worthy either,” she says to Sandy, with all the quietness the moment deserves. “I suppose only time will tell us that. But you should know, it brings me comfort to know that you would.”

Sandy will likely never realise what that means: comfort to a dying soul, a soul condemned to never see its life’s work completed. If she’s lucky, she will live as long as Gwen has and then some more besides, all that youth and hurt burned away by a better world. Perhaps then, when she has lived and learned and grown, when her time comes and she is faced with her own mortality, she will think back and understand how precious a thing is comfort.

For now, however...

For now, she only swallows — discomfort again, and nervousness and youth — and says, “Let us hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Gwen thinks of the poison, feels it burning beneath her skin, and doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

She turns her gaze to the sky, instead, to the inky black of night as it begins — slowly, achingly slowly, like everything seems to move after so many lifetimes — to lighten. Dawn will find them before too long; the shadows are growing longer, and the few nocturnal creatures that make their homes in the trees are growing quiet. She is bone-weary, and there is still so much left to do.

So long yet before she can let herself rest at last.

How many hours, she wonders? How many heartbeats, how many breaths? Is it enough? Is anything ever enough?

All those years. All those centuries. The god in front of her, discordant and dull-eyed, hasn’t yet seen a tenth of them; the girl tossing and turning in her sleep, wearing the robes of a false name, never will. It should be enough, keeping them alive, keeping them strong, taking their burdens as best she can in the little time she has left. It should be enough, to finally be able to die... to finally be able to die with purpose.

 _Let us hope,_ Sandy murmured, blithe and naive like so many born to this world they must make right, _it doesn’t come to that_.

Gwen presses a hand to her own neck, finds her pulse. She counts out a century’s worth of heartbeats, a lifetime of breaths. Two centuries, then five, then ten. How many, she wonders, to make up a life lived well?

She may never know. But if her choice tonight was worth anything at all, _they_ will.

Monkey and Tripitaka, Pigsy and Sandy, the four of them with all their myriad flaws. They will rise to the challenge or they won’t, save the world or not... but at the very least, they will live.

It may be enough, it may not. But Gwen has lived too long and seen too much to end her life now without faith. The choice is made; the future will be what it is, and she has done all she can.

“Indeed,” she says, to Sandy and to herself, “Let us hope.”

—


End file.
